Abstract
A collaborative virtual workshop series is being hosted by the RWSC, the Marine Technology Society (MTS), and the Consensus Building Institute (CBI), in partnership with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), with support from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and contributions from NOAA Fisheries, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), and Turn Forward to identify models, technologies, and information from other sectors, research areas, and potential partners in support of whale conservation and responsible offshore wind development. The objective of the series is to assess the state of the science and metrics for evaluating technologies, tools, and methods for monitoring baleen whales specifically during sound producing offshore wind construction activities. PNNL and NREL are leading the development of the technical workshop materials and outputs, with input from DOE, NOAA, and BOEM. RWSC, MTS, and CBI are providing the forum, workshop facilitation, and are developing workshop proceedings for each session that capture participant input and discussion. The second session of the Collaborative Technology Workshop Series was held virtually on June 26, 2024. This report summarizes discussions and key takeaways from this second session. The
objectives for this session were to:
- Be updated by PNNL and NREL on their technology characterization report development process, including how the report is evolving since the first workshop and how experts are being engaged.
- Discuss technology validation and evaluation approaches.
- Learn about real-world technology implementation including a summary of current requirements for monitoring during piledriving and perspectives on how humans in the field implement and interpret the data from technologies.
Materials from this session including an agenda and draft products produced by PNNL and NREL can be found here: https://bit.ly/46lBFeZ
Facilitated by CBI, workshop participants heard introductory presentations from DOE, RWSC, PNNL and NREL. RWSC presented synthesized information across current regulatory documents to demonstrate the range of sizes of clearance and shutdown zones during offshore wind construction across activity types, geographies, and species. A panel of offshore wind industry members discussed considerations around human decision making and communication related to the selection and deployment of technology and the challenging offshore environment.
Below are the key takeaways from the workshop:
- The PNNL and NREL report will outline a proposed three-phase approach for characterizing technologies for marine mammal monitoring during pile driving for offshore wind construction, focusing on potentially standardizing the process of selecting, testing, and validating these technologies. Their approach covers system design, evaluation and field validation planning, and field validation execution. The final report will focus on potential performance metrics without endorsing specific products or operational performance thresholds, and will highlight the significance of emerging technologies in multi-modal monitoring systems. The draft final report will be completed by the end of September 2024.
- The PNNL and NREL have developed a Zotero Library that includes all the references used to develop the report.
- From the synthesis of current marine mammal monitoring requirements during offshore wind pile driving, it was clear that there are needs for:
- Flexibility in technology evaluations as there are unique aspects for each project.
- Real-time detections (<5-10 minutes), as they help trigger actions for monitoring in a timely manner.
- The ability to speciate without reliance on noise signatures as animals may be silent. This is important as monitoring actions have different requirements.
- Detection capabilities at a flexible range of distances, platforms, heights, and environmental conditions even within a project.
- There are many involved with technology use during offshore wind construction, from selection to deployment to interpretation. The technologies deployed must work within complex regulatory frameworks and in non-ideal testing conditions. Despite this, a panel of offshore wind industry members generally agreed that the two factors that influence technology's real-world performance the most are performance given environmental conditions and species behavior, and not human operational considerations.
- The volume of monitoring data collected during construction can be large, often causing data transmission, storage and general data management challenges.